If you or someone you love was a victim of nursing home abuse or neglect in Holiday or elsewhere in Florida, you likely have a myriad of concerns. Frequently asked questions include:
- How do I make sure this does not happen to anyone else?
- Can I hold them accountable for what they have done?
- Can I move my loved one to a different nursing home?
Our experienced injury attorneys can answer all these questions for you and we can hold nursing homes accountable for their abuse and neglect. By doing so, we send a message to negligent nursing homes that their treatment of the elderly will not be accepted. To learn more, give a Holiday nursing home abuse lawyer at Distasio Law Firm a call.
If you or a loved one has been a victim of abuse, or injured due to neglect in a Florida Nursing Home, call Distasio Law Firm today.
What is Nursing Home Abuse?
According to Florida statute 415.102(1) abuse is defined as “any willful act by a caregiver which causes or is likely to cause significant impairment to a vulnerable adult’s physical, mental, or emotional health.” This abuse includes both acts and omissions. Florida nursing homes engage in abuse in many ways, both overt and subtle. This includes purposely under-staffing facilities in order to increase profits or being verbally or physically abusive to residents. Other examples of abuse include:
- Hitting uncooperative residents
- Twisting resident’s limbs when re-positioning them
- Yelling at residents
- Teasing and or calling residents names
A nursing home abuse lawyer in Holiday will gather evidence and use it to hold perpetrators accountable.
What is Nursing Home Neglect?
According to Florida statute 415.102(16) neglect is defined as “the failure or omission on the part of a caregiver to provide the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain the physical and mental health of a vulnerable adult, including, but not limited to food, clothing, medicine, shelter, supervision, and medical services, which a prudent person would consider essential for the well being of a vulnerable adult.” The most common forms of nursing home neglect is compassion fatigue or becoming so accustomed to a situation that you lose the ability to care for those involved. It manifest in the following signs:
- Failure to help with hygiene
- Failure to supervise residents that are at risk of falling
- Failure to change bedding
- Failure to change clothes
- Failure to feed the person
- Failure to hydrate the person
- Allowing incontinent residents to lay in their waste
- Allowing incontinent residents to lay in their waste
Some examples of medical neglect may include:
- Failing to provide proper medical attention
- Failing to provide prescription medication
- Over-medicating a person
- Under-medicating a person
- Failure to diagnose symptoms
- Failure to treat evident symptoms
- Failing to send a resident to the hospital when symptoms warrant it
A diligent Holiday nursing home neglect attorney can’t change the past. But by holding wrongdoers accountable with a lawsuit, we can help deter this type of conduct in the future. If you think your loved one has been the victim of neglect in a nursing home in Holiday, give us a call today.
Under-Staffing Is The Root Cause of Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect
While many nursing homes throughout the state of Florida provide great care to residents, others put profits above compassion. This is often seen in the way nursing homes staff their facilities.
There are two methods of nursing homes under-staffing. The first way is by purposely not hiring enough staff to meet the needs of residents. With less staff members on each shift, less time is available to care for the residents. Residents with a large number of needs get the least amount of help, if they get any assistance at all. The tasks of re-positioning residents or even feeding them, simply doesn’t get done, greatly damaging the health of the resident
The second way nursing homes reduce staff costs is by hiring under-qualified employees. They, of course, cost less than the qualified ones. These facilities hire nursing assistants to do the job of registered nurses. These employees are not trained to meet the demands of an elderly population and often become abusive as a result.
Types of Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect
Unfortunately, there are many types of nursing home abuse and neglect. The most common include:
- Bed Rail Entrapment
- Choking
- Combative Residents
- Dehydration
- Dropped Patients Hoyer Lift
- Elopement and Wandering
- Feeding Tube Neglect
- Fractures
- Impacted Bowels
- Insect Bites
- Malnutrition
- Medication Errors
- Poor Hygiene
- Pressure Sores
- Restraints
- Sepsis
- Sexual Assault
- Slip and Falls
- Smoking Accidents
- Ventilator Neglect
Identifying Abuse and Neglect
Elder abuse and elder neglect can be subtle. It requires focused observation to help your loved one. Look for these signs:
- Unexplained bruises
- Sudden changes in personality
- Fear of a caregiver
- Sexually transmitted diseases
- Fainting, tiredness or other symptoms of malnutrition
- Unclean environment
- Excessive restraints
- Recurring injuries
- Injuries that cannot be easily explained
- The caregiver will not let you be alone with your loved one
- Withdrawal or depression
- Strange financial transactions
Finding the Right Facility
The best way to prevent your loved one from being the victim of nursing abuse and/or nursing home neglect is to investigate before you place your loved one. When you’re researching facilities in Holiday, these are things you should look for:
- Does the nursing home appear to be clean?
- Are the nursing home staff knowledgeable and friendly?
- Are residents engaged in activities or are they just sitting around with nothing to do?
- Does the nursing home have video monitoring in the halls and patients’ rooms
(video monitoring assures that nursing home residents will be watched and others
will be watched while interacting with the residents, which could prevent possible
abuse)? - Does the nursing home have medical directors and physicians who supervise
medical staff and the medical procedures residents receive? - Does the nursing home have licensed nurses and/or CNA’s on staff?
- Does the nursing home employ enough staff to sufficiently provide for the care,
treatment, and supervision of every patient? - Are the nursing home physicians, supervisors, and administrators accessible and
willing to address concerns? - Have incidents of abuse or neglect occurred in the past and how were they
handled?
Taking time now to research a facility prior to the placement of elderly or impaired loved may save a ton of heartache and protect their well-being.
Contact a Holiday Nursing Home Abuse Attorney Now
Talk to our team at Distasio Law Firm if you have been injured by the negligence of another. We understand how complex these cases can be and will do everything in our power to ensure that you and your loved ones receive justice. We offer a free case evaluation so that you can tell us the details of your case quickly and easily.
You should not have to deal with this difficult situation on your own so please do not hesitate to call our office to learn how we could help you. Contact Distasio Law Firm today to schedule an appointment. A compassionate Holiday nursing home abuse lawyer could help get the compensation you deserve for what you have gone through.
